By Kemi Diver | US Environmental Policy Student

In the last decade, the wood pellet biomass industry has grown globally. Scrap wood and wood waste left over from lumber industries and urban construction and demolition can be used to generate heat through a process called biomass conversion.^[1] The two largest global biomass producers, Drax and Enviva, compress woody biomass into wood pellets that they burn for energy. These companies pitch their wood pellets as a renewable energy source, with Eniva calling them a “versatile alternative” that will “displace” fossil fuels.^[2] Drax claims their biomass is a sustainable and reliable solution to meeting global energy needs while maintaining environmental stewardship, and has ambitiously set the goal of being the first ever carbon-negative company by 2030.^[3]

This makes woody biomass seem like a great way to repurpose organic waste products into usable energy without further stripping the Earth of natural resources. However, Drax and Enviva’s environmental impacts reveal the biomass industry’s sustainable representation of wood pellets to be a greenwashed façade. The reality of the industry is built on the deforestation of the American Southeast and frontline communities overburdened with power plants and pollution exposure.

Drax’s main website misleadingly states “Sustainably sourced biomass never contributes to deforestation.” In actuality, Drax and Enviva source fully grown tree trunks for wood from hired contract loggers who clear-cut entire regions of the Southeast’s biodiverse forests.^[4] In the last decade, Enviva has contributed to 300,000 acres of deforestation in North Carolina alone. This destruction turns long-living hardwood forests in North Carolina and Virginia from carbon sinks into massive carbon emitters that release millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere during their harvest, transportation, production, and combustion processes.^[5] By not overseeing the logging themselves, these companies have an outlet third party to blame when environmental standards are violated, stating that the loggers are responsible for not following the companies’ “responsible sourcing policies”.^[6]

After clear-cutting, Drax and Enviva claim that regrowing forests will sequester the carbon that was released in logging and from burning pellets. However, while they cut down upwards of 60,000 acres of forest annually, newly planted saplings take decades to mature into trees that can sequester as much carbon as the forests cut down before them.^[7] Furthermore, the impacts of carbon cannot simply be understood as carbon released and sequestered. When forests are cut down, the immediate release of carbon into the atmosphere contributes to global warming and degrades the ecological integrity of the local region, causing local biodiversity and communities to suffer environmental damage that isn’t easily undone.^[8]

After facing backlash for greenwashing from Southern environmental groups, including the Southern Environmental Law Center and Dogwood Alliance, Enviva aimed to present an environmentally conscious narrative by introducing the Enviva Forest Conservation Fund, an initiative to reinvest in protecting vulnerable forests. The fund is a $5 million, 10-year program that matches grants from the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities given to nonprofit organizations. One of the fund’s objectives is to assign expert science analysts to review and develop the best sustainable forestry practices. Similarly, as part of the company’s Sustainability Framework, the Drax Foundation is an initiative to invest in nature and community green spaces.^[9] However, the amount put forth in these funds is mere fractions of both companies’ billions of dollars of annual earnings.^[10]

Legislative clarification of the definition of renewable energy is necessary to eliminate the threat of biomass being a “policy-rider” and receive the funding benefits of tax subsidies designated for clean energy technologies like wind and solar. In North Carolina, $10 million tax dollars have already been put towards subsiding the biomass industry.^[11] Federally, the Inflation Reduction Act committed $100 billion of grants and subsidies to renewable energy projects.^[12] Nationally, despite concerns shared by over 170 NGOs, environmental organizations, and 800 scientists, the United Nations still supports the U.S.’s classification of woody biomass as a “renewable” energy source.^[13]

In 2022, the North Carolina Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board wrote to the NCDEQ to express their concerns about every Enviva biomass facility being sited in a financially vulnerable community of color.^[14] The Board also reported that the biomass industry does not contribute to the state’s renewable energy goals and exports most of the produced pellets to Europe. In 2021, Mississippi’s DEQ fined the Drax Amite pellet-burning plant $2.5 million for exceeding air pollution limits for over three years.^[15] In the grand scheme of the industry, this fine was marginal and equaled the amount of money Drax received daily in subsidies.^[16] To support environmental quality and public health outcomes, State DEQs should not give permits to companies like Drax and Enviva without rigorous analysis of past, current, and potential environmental justice and pollution.

It’s imperative that a shared understanding of what qualifies as renewable energy is enacted into law. Climate funding should not be administered to a greenwashed biomass industry that fails to meet adequate carbon emissions and environmental health standards. To advance real, impactful, and just renewable technology, the biomass industry must not be recognized as a climate solution by State DEQs and the federal government.

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^[1] “Sustainable Biomass: The Potential of Wood Waste.” 2022. Locoal. 2022. https://www.locoal.com/blog-posts/the-potential-of-wood-waste.

^[2] “Displace Coal – Grow More Trees – Fight Climate Change.” Enviva Biomass. https://www.envivabiomass.com/.

^[3] “Explore Sustainable Biomass.” Drax Global. https://www.drax.com/biomass/.

^[4] Davis, Sam. 2022. “Does Enviva Clearcut Forests? The Surprising TruthDogwood Alliance.” Dogwood Alliance. November 28, 2022. https://dogwoodalliance.org/2022/11/does-enviva-clearcut-forests-the-surprising-truth/.

^[5] Alamo, Adel. 2022. “Meet the Biomass Baddies” Dogwood Alliance. March 21, 2022. https://dogwoodalliance.org/2022/03/biomass-baddies/.

^[6] Davis, Sam. 2022.

^[7] Zucchino, Emily. 2021. “15 Reasons NC Leaders Should Reject the Wood Pellet Industry.” Dogwood Alliance. January 28, 2021. https://dogwoodalliance.org/2021/01/15-reasons-nc-leaders-should-reject-the-wood-pellet-industry/.

^[8] Bentsen, Niclas Scott. 2017. “Carbon Debt and Payback Time – Lost in the Forest?” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (June) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.02.004.

^[9] Brentjens, Emma et al. “Greenwashing a Report on the Corporate Selling of Polluting Wood Pellet Production.” Rachel Carson Council. https://rachelcarsoncouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/greenwashing-web-2.pdf.

^[10] “Enviva Reports 4Q and Full-Year 2022 Results, Provides 2023 Guidance, and Announces New Customer Agreements.” 2022. Enviva Biomass. 2022. https://ir.envivabiomass.com/news/news-details/2023/Enviva-Reports-4Q-and-Full-Year-2022-Results-Provides-2023-Guidance-and-Announces-New-Customer-Agreements/.

^[11] Alamo, Adel. 2022. “Meet the Biomass Baddies” Dogwood Alliance.

^[12] Rudge, Sarah. 2025. “Energy, Oil & Gas Magazine.” Energy, Oil & Gas Magazine. January 6, 2025. https://energy-oil-gas.com/news/biden-surpasses-100b-in-clean-energy-funding/.

^[13] Brentjens, Emma et al. “Greenwashing a Report on the Corporate Selling of Polluting Wood Pellet Production.” Rachel Carson Council.

^[14] Johnson Jr., Jame, et al. 2022. “Re: Request to hold Special Meeting on Biomass/Enviva Permit LLC.” NCDEQ Environmental Justice & Equity Advisory Board. https://www.deq.nc.gov/ej/ejeab-letter-09272022/open

^[15] Kaufman, Alexander C. 2021. “A ‘Green’ Energy Project Leaves a Mississippi Town Gasping for Air.” HuffPost. December 18, 2021. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biomass-energy-power-plants_n_61bcb6cae4b0a3722477d16a.

^[16] “Drax Biomass Subsidies in 2024” 2025. Ember. April 3, 2025. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/drax-biomass-subsidies-in-2024/.